Ask YC: Profit: $25/user. Customers: satisfied. Competitors: none. Target market: huge. But...

Hmm. Interesting idea, but I see several extremely big problems. <p>First, you're relying on patients to triage themselves and determine if their condition is life-threatening. You do not emphasize that the service is for CLEARLY non-life-threatening problems. It should have a huge banner that lists some symptoms and says to call 911 or drive to the ER immediately. Maybe there should be a system for a triage nurse to monitor the "symptoms" of the people who sign up and call them if he/she thinks it's serious.<p>Second, if someone signs up and doesn't think their illness is life-threatening and then dies, you/your company can be potentially liable for that. I have a feeling insuring yourself against that will be expensive.<p>Third, the brand is really horrible and the site isn't exactly easy to navigate. But you mentioned you need a UI designer (I emailed you), so at least you seem to recognize that.<p>Fourth, I would not pay 25 dollars for this service. Maybe you can work out a deal with the hospital to pull this fee out of the flat ER cost. That would be awesome and you'd have tons and tons of people use the system, especially if it's well advertised at the hospital.<p>The idea is cool and for major trauma centers in metropolitan areas where the wait can be greater than 7-10 hours, it could be extremely valuable. <p>

i dont think marketing to end users is the way to go. like someone said, no one cares about an emergency until they are in one.<p>market to hospitals. get integrated into their website. when someone calls their ER, make sure the nurse tells them to register on the website.<p>i think going white label is your best bet.<p>but yea, this is probably the best "Ask YC about my idea" i've seen since i've joined. you're not selling ER software. you're selling software that helps people wait in line. <p>think of other markets that could use these tools, and then sell it to them as well.

&#62; How would you raise consumer awareness for a service like this?<p>I'm not sure that "diluting" your message in the press will be very efficient. I may be wrong but I guess people don't really care about emergencies unless they need it.<p>I would instead spend a day (or a few days) in the emergency waiting room (or ask a doctor there) to see if there are "typical" cases of non-life threatening emergencies. Then I would directly bring the information to those people (e.g. skaters).<p>edit: your domain name really sucks. There's no way someone will remember this or even type this with a broken hand.

What a great idea. <p>The way I see it, there are a couple ways to work with it. <p>1) You've found a size hospital that it works well for and you get resistance when trying to go to bigger hospitals? The forget the large hospitals and find hospitals that match this one's profile around the country. Interesting niche.<p>2) Use the technology and apply it to any place that you have to wait in line (for a table at a restaurant, public golf courses, etc...)<p>What else am I missing?<p>

Interesting comments!<p>I thought I'd post again, because I wasn't so clear the first time. Let's try again.<p>1) You DO have competition. Almost nobody has NO competition. Competition #1 would be "do nothing". There are other competitors.<p>2) This has probably been done before -- many times in many venues. You should find out where and why it did/didn't work out.<p>3) I hear you say you want to generalize to all kinds of things: doctors, grocery stores, banks, etc. Take a pill on some of that. If this has been tried before and failed, then you're going to need to grow organically inside one vertical -- then spin out. Waiting in line at an ER is just a different problem (both business and technical) than waiting in line at a car wash or something. Learn how to sell into one market well, first. Dreams are grandeur are probably a little premature. Mind your knitting.<p>Hope that helps some.

Get an add for it on the automated answering machine at the hospital, clinic, and or local physician offices.<p>i think the best way to do this is, via negotiations with ppo groups, hmo groups, and insurance companies. I could see someone like Allstate being interested in this, in regards to their current ad campaign about safe driving. Insurance is a really competitive market place, and I could see this as a feature add on sell, for a monthly fee. say 10$ a month to auto fill your paperwork, when you arrive in the emergency room.<p>you also need to consider that information is so often filled in wrong, and it makes the billing process hell for doctors and hospitals. if you could validate someones payment options before they arrived, then the hospital/ doctor might pay for that service just to get more accurate billing info.<p>medical health care billing is a dirty business and doctors get paid less than 1/2 the time. increase their payment percentage and they will jump at it.<p>when someone calls in, they will be given the option to fill in the data on the web via a website.

I can't find anything about it online, but going from the word of my adviser while I was studying in China, there was a woman there who did something similar to this and is now very wealthy. IIRC, she paid people to wait around in lobbies and sell their spots when they got called, so people could bypass the rest of the line. What you are doing, I would say, is more ethical because instead of skipping the line a customer is just reserving a spot. I wish I could find some news article about this, but I have nothing. Either my adviser was lying to me or my web search skills are diminishing. Anyway, good luck, I think it's a good service.<p>Go after the big city hospitals where there tends to be a really long wait time, like Chicago, New York, and LA. Also, try to work in text message notifications for 15 minutes before the scheduled time.

This is an absolutely brilliant idea, and I'd certainly use it if it were offered at a hospital near me and I needed it. (I hope I don't, for obvious reasons.)<p>I'd try two things to raise awareness. One is a local news story, as mentioned elsewhere on this thread. The other is to work with the emergency room staff at the offering hospital - I'd imagine they appreciate something like this too, since it means fewer frustrated patients when they finally do see them. Have flyers available for emergency room visitors - they'll be frustrated from the long wait time, which is the perfect time to offer them a solution. Put up posters around the waiting room. Try and get on the offering hospital's website.

There is a lot of potential for really clever marketing. I'm thinking something like bus billboards that read "Hit by a bus?" :-)<p>I'd definitely use this if it were available in my area.

&#62;How would you raise consumer awareness for a service like this? I've tried a few things (mostly offline), but none successful so far.<p>This is the kind of thing with huge mainstream appeal which means you need to market to the mainstream. PR is the best, do you know any reporters at local newspapers? If you raise some money or have some money, you can also buy advertisements in newspapers or magazines or hire a true PR firm to get you press hits.

Market the damn thing! Buy advertising! I'd definitely use this service, but there's no way I'd know to go looking for it.

This is a great service. I do not have much advices as I do not know about your industry but I can clearly see the value. Too bad I just moved from Smyrna ( I lived on Paces Ferry &#38; Cumberland) or I would use it. Good luck, It's always nice to see startups from the ATL

I like it. Keep bootstrapping.<p>I wonder about scaling past that first hospital, though. Kind of a catch-22 situation -- the hospital has to be small enough to not care about having part of its records online yet large enough to support a growing business.

"Competitors: none" won't last.<p>This seems like a situation where raising tons of funding and scaling like hell is your best move. Settle questions of legality in different cities/states now, before you have competition.

rev split with hospitals + terminal in the waiting room. Get biz dev and sign up hospitals. I'm sure that someone is saying this already in the comments, but don't have time to read all.<p>Find the person in the hospital that is having pain (figurative), whoever deals with the ER scheduling. Start by giving offering the hospital 15-25 %

It is a unique story, try pitching it to the local news, worst they can do is say no.

"Keep away from people who try to belittle your ambitions. Small people always do that, but the really great make you feel that you, too, can become great"<p>- Twain